Mozambique: President Nyusi enacts Constitutional Amendment postponing District Elections

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Mozambique: President Nyusi enacts Constitutional Amendment postponing District Elections

2:15 CAT | 07 Aug 2023

File photo: Presidency of the Republic of Mozambique

The President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, on Friday enacted the law amending the Constitution of the Republic so at to adjourne the district elections scheduled for 2024, the Presidency of the Republic announced today.

In its communique, the Presidency states that the law, approved on Thursday by the Assembly of the Republic, was “submitted to the President of the Republic for promulgation”, with the head of state, having verified that it does not contradict the Fundamental Law, therefore ” enacting and sending it for publication”.

READ: District Elections: Parliament passes Frelimo Constitutional Amendment definitively – AIM

The Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique, the country’s parliament, on Thursday approved the postponement of the 2024 district elections, without a new date, with votes in favour from Frelimo, the ruling party, and against from Renamo and the MDM, the parliamentary opposition.

The postponement of the vote was made possible through the approval, in an extraordinary session, of a bill for a specific revision of the Constitution of the Republic submitted by the parliamentary bench of the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo), a party with a qualified majority of 184 deputies in parliament, which it has a total of 250 seats.

In Thursday’s final and specific decision, all 174 deputies from the ruling party bench present at the session voted in favour of the project.

Of the deputies present from the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party, 40 voted against, and from the Mozambican Democratic Movement (MDM), the third-largest party, four.

The ruling party bench had already voted in favour, in general, while the two opposition benches rejected the proposal.

Voicing the vote in favour of Frelimo, ruling party deputy and former prime minister Aires Ali said that “there are no objective, legal, material and financial conditions for the holding of district elections in 2024”.

“The implementation of decentralised district governance bodies presents an imminent and unavoidable potential risk of spreading the constraints of provincial decentralised governance to the 154 districts of the country, generating conflicts of competence between the district and municipal decentralisation bodies,” Ali said.

For his part, Renamo spokesman and deputy José Manteigas accused Frelimo of “lynching and blocking the Constitution, for denying the right of the inhabitants of the 154 Mozambican districts to elect their local governors”.

“This alleged revision represents the height of dictatorship and overlapping with the will of around 30 million Mozambicans and is an authentic blockage to the development of the districts, which have been the visible face of poverty installed in the country for half a century,” Manteigas said.

The constitutional revision, Manteigas continued, could trigger yet another cycle of political violence in the country, because the holding of district elections is part of the agreement signed between the Frelimo government and Renamo to end the armed confrontation between government forces and the armed wing of the main opposition party following the 2014 general elections.

For the Renamo spokesman, the postponement of the district elections is a constitutional blow, because the decision should be made via a referendum, since it concerns the fundamental right to elect and be elected.

The MDM considered the postponement of the elections means “unscrupulously tearing up the Constitution”, maintaining that the scheduling of district elections “was the result of political agreements aimed at bringing peace” to the country.

“This attitude is irresponsible, discriminatory and may cause fratricidal divisions in Mozambican society, in the short, medium and long term”, declared MDM deputy Elias Impuire.
On July 10, the Mozambican government announced the creation of the Commission for Reflection on the Decentralised Governance Model (CREMOD), with the aim of promoting debate on the country’s decentralisation process and public consultation on the best model for devolution of power to the local communities.

The legal provision for district elections resulted from understandings signed between the Mozambican government and Renamo, within the scope of the 2019 Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement, and aimed to allow the election of administrators to positions previously occupied by central government appointees, as is currently the case.

Source: Lusa